BackToilet-training trauma
Don't punish your child, teach her how to indicate when her diaper is soiled
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My granddaughter is 3 and wears diapers even now, throughout the day. Her parents keep saying that she needs to get toilet trained, and nowadays they shout at her for not indicating when she has wet or soiled her diaper. The playschool she goes to also insists on diapers, so the child is in diapers 24 hours, and sometimes the same soiled diaper for many hours. I do not live with them, so I cannot change things, but please indicate how this switch over to toilet training can be done without shouting at the child? I see other children toilet-trained much earlier than three years.
Yes, the first step in toilet training can be taken much earlier. It’s not a question of forcing or punishing, but just getting a child used to indicating in some way or the other that she has soiled her diaper. A step before that is to also not let the child remain in soiled diapers for too long. Once they get used to the dirty diaper, it just becomes a part of their overall sense of themselves, which is counter-productive to learning how to indicate that they have a soiled diaper, and then later to indicate that they want to sit on the pot.
Some parents put on the diaper but take the child and place him on the pot every few hours, so that he can begin to associate the toilet or the pot with passing urine or stools. If none of this has been put in place for your grandchild till the age of 3, it is important that instead of shouting at her (how is she to suddenly learn to indicate, is what you can gently ask), they first teach her to at least inform them when she has a dirty diaper. For this they too have to check the diaper every hour or so, and change it, so that her discomfort with a dirty diaper is established. Asking, “It feels dirty, no?" rather than saying “Eeks dirty girl" at this stage would be very useful.
As for the playschool, they really ought to be having a diaper-change session, at the very least, once in the course of the time that the children are there. It is extremely unhygienic for them to be packed in that diaper for hours together. At home, you could suggest that she be left without the diaper for a few hours, and that she has to inform them when she wants to go. There will be a few “accidents and spills" at first, but will really help in her getting less comfortable in simply passing a motion without registering it or without telling her parents. If the child comes over to your house regularly, you could do this too, though you will have to be prepared for some amount of mess and cleaning up.
Gouri Dange is the author of the just released book, More ABCs of Parenting (Random House), and ABCs of Parenting.
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